On Friday 6 June, we celebrate the feast day of Our Holy Father Norbert.

In his honour, the community and the parishes will be celebrating a Solemn High Mass at 7.30 p.m. in the parish church of Our Lady Immaculate, on New London Road in Chelmsford.

The celebrant will be the Prelate of the Canonry, Rt Rev. Hugh Allan o.praem.

All are most welcome to attend. There will be light refreshments afterwards. We hope that you will be able to join us to celebrate the birthday into heaven of Our Holy Father. We will be publishing a novena prayer to St Norbert on Wednesday in preparation for the feast. We hope you will be able to join us in this prayerful preparation as well, by means of the internet.

Please continue to keep our community in your prayers. We are tremendously grateful for this most generous of Christian charities.

The route between the train station and the parish church is quite simple, and takes about 15 minutes to walk. Leaving the train station through the main door, walk directly down towards the town, and past the county council offices and Anglican Cathedral, and through one of the main shopping streets, crossing the river. To cross the ring-road, use the subway, and follow the hospital route; walk straight on when you leave the subway, until you come to the church on your right a few hundred yards later.Alternatively, a taxi from the railway station costs about £6.

Related

Our Holy Father Norbert

Norbertines of St Philip’s Priory, Chelmsford

"Live together in harmony, and be of one mind and one heart on the way to God" (Rule 1.2)

The Canons Regular of Prémontré were founded by St. Norbert at Prémontré, France on Christmas Day, 1120.

By God's grace, we live the canonical life based upon the ancient Rule of St Augustine (written around 400). At the heart of our way of life is a devotion to prayer and contemplation, which nourishes our various apostolic works in the world. There are five pillars to our Norbertine way of life that our holy father Norbert bequeathed to us:

- The praise of Almighty God in the sacred liturgy
- A zeal for souls
- A life of penance
- Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament
- Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially her Immaculate Conception

The Order arrived in England in 1138, until the suppression of the monasteries in the Reformation. By then, there were 38 houses (both male and female) in the British Isles. Expelled from these islands for over three centuries, we returned in 1872 and founded several missions.

Our own canonry became independent in 2004, and we established our home in Chelmsford in 2006.